Because we are attached to past
thoughts,ideas, and concepts, we live in the
shadow ofabsolute reality. Most of us tend
to cling to what is familiar to us, and are
quite shy whenit comes to the unknown. We chose
to let what we have already thought about
dominate our thinking, and shun unfamiliar thoughts,
and new ideas,concepts, and ways of using our
minds. Indeed,it is more correct to say that we
entertain thoughts, rather than to say that
we think.

To "truly think" is a
totally new experience. If we could cast aside all
of our personal ambitions and desires, and
allow our true mind to manifest, we would find
that we are being born anew every moment, and
that the wonder of our mind unfolding within
coincides in a most remarkable way with the world
we perceive through our sense organs. The more
closely we come to recognize this, the more we
will find that the outer world that is
perceived through our sense organs is but a
projection of our inner life; that in fact,
"everything is made from mind alone." Thus when
inner and outer worlds are in close harmony, we
will find greater happiness in responding to
situations, just as when two old friends meet after
a long absence.

Unfortunately, our thinking is
dominated by selfish imaginings most of the
time, andwe are strangers to most of the
situations we encounter because our self-seeking
aims dominate and distort our perceptions of the
externalworld. Some people try to correct
these distortions with meditation, not
realizing that meditation does not produce true
thinking. Meditation just gives us something onto which
to harness our wandering mind, so that it can
be content without entertaining vain
imaginings. Meditation is like a bone that satisfies
a dog until the evening when the dog's master
arrives and feeds him. Meditation is nothing
real in and of itself, but rather is a method
that allows us to recognize what is constantly
manifesting at every moment, but which is
blocked by our false thinking, ambitions, and
desires. Rather than sink our teeth into a lot of
false thinking about rights and wrongs, goods and
bads, of this and that, of situations and people,
meditation gives us a topic on which we can
center our mind.

So to call the process that takes
place when we meditate "thought
development" is notexact; perhaps it would be more
correct to call it "thought recognition."
For all that meditation can do is help us to recognize
what is there within us a11 along. The wild horse
of the mind has been dragging us about here and
there for countless aeons, and must be
brought to rest in order that this recognition can
take place. As we meditate, gradually we become
disentangled from sense-dominated thoughts and
individualistic views, ambitions, and desire. We
have been feeding and living on these personal
thoughts for so long that we have come to believe
that no other way of "thinking" exists.
But as we gain the strength through meditation to do
without these false thoughts and attachments to
views, we will discover the wonder of our true mind,
and be most content and happy, independent of all
our previous ways of thinking. This is the
purpose of meditation.